


Diners Revisited

by SinisterScribe



Series: Strange Cases [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Emmet Swan - Freeform, Emmet has caught them, F/M, Granny is having none of their shit, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Regina is catching all the feels, Rule 63, Sleeping Together, poor guy, that truck tho, those pesky feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 22:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterScribe/pseuds/SinisterScribe
Summary: The next in the series. Back in the diner but this time with a very different tone.Set a few weeks after our last outing. Emmet is stronger and more controlled with his magic and he is very annoyed with certain someones.You guys should be glad I didn't write this in its original story format. We'd have taken freaking decades to get to this point.





	Diners Revisited

**_Granny’s…_ **

 

Regina slowly and carefully opened the door to the diner and let loose a controlled breath.

“Regina?!”

“Miss Lucas,” Regina lifted her head, rigidly controlling her breathing and found a smile from somewhere, “if you would be so kind as to find your grandmother, I would like her assistance.”

“What _happened_ to you?!” Ruby tossed down her order pad on the table and hurried over to her. “Oh my god, you look like you’ve been in a car wreck!”

“You should see the car.” Regina kept that smile somehow. “Your grandmother?”

“Siddown! Siddown!” Ruby reached out to take Regina’s handbag and she got really worried when the other woman just gave it up without even a token protest.

“Careful with it, please.” Regina watched Ruby with the bag whilst the werewolf herded her towards an empty chair and waved her down onto it.

Ruby was very careful not to touch her. Not only did she not want Regina to freak out, but she also didn’t like the way the queen’s arm appeared to be hanging loose in her sleeve. It just wasn’t sitting _right._ Her entire left arm hung limp, she had a nasty graze on her cheek, her suit jacket was torn at the shoulder, her knuckles were grazed and bleeding and one of her nails had been ripped right down to the quick. Her hair was mussed and she had a bruise forming on her jaw.

She did not look well at all.

“Who did this to you?” Ruby sank down onto her heels in front of Regina and hesitantly reached for Regina’s limp hand before she changed her mind.

“I would really like you to fetch Granny.” Regina spoke with care. “My magic is trying to heal my wounds and if it does that before my shoulder is reset, things shall become…unpleasant for me.”

“Oh, jeez, right. Wait here.” Ruby –carefully- set Regina’s handbag down and then hurried off to find Granny in the back office.

Regina sat back in her chair, folded one leg over the other with exaggerated care and tried not to just ache all over.

 _Stupid_ , she berated herself, _stupid idiot._

She glanced down at her bag and then jerked upright when it felt like there was a brick in her skull that might fall out of her forehead if she leaned over too far. She blinked at the glass of water hovering in front of her.

“You, uh, look like you might need it.”

Regina looked up at Doc, on the other end of the glass.

Regina tried to lift her hand to take the glass and she blinked with a little worry when she couldn’t reach that high and her hand began to tremble.

“I got it.” Doc held the glass towards her mouth and steered the straw for her.

Regina tentatively leaned forward and took a sip. She drank as deeply as she dared and then leaned back. She nodded once.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Doc managed something of a smile and set the water down on the table beside her. “I’ll just leave this here.”

The dwarf nodded and then slunk away.

“Good grief, what have ye been up to?!”

Regina’s head sloshed when she turned to look at Granny striding into the diner. The older woman halted a half step when she took a good look at Regina and then covered it with more gruff demands.

“Well? What happened?”

“Got into a little disagreement on my way here.”

“With _what?!”_ Granny bent to Regina, taking her chin in her hand and studying her wounds.

She looked battered and bruised, the dislocated arm looked horrifying but actually wasn’t all that bad. Not life threatening. Granny studied the queen in a quick once over from top to toe. Nothing ruptured, nothing spurting, nothing hanging off. Well, aside from the arm.

“A truck.” Regina eyeballed the glass of water and accepted the drink when Granny held it out to her again.

Granny was quiet a long moment, letting Regina drink, and then set the glass aside again.

“You see who was driving?”

Regina looked her right in the eye and lied.

“No.”

Granny’s jaw rocked to the side but she nodded once anyway. The queen wanted to keep it to herself? Fine. Not really Granny’s business…though she’d remember the scent of the motor oil on Regina’s clothes. She’d remember the colour of the flecks of paint that were _embedded_ into the graze on her cheek.

This kind of shite just shouldn’t _stand_.

The boy was going to be pissed.

“Right,” Granny nodded and then waved Ruby over when she strode out of the kitchen, stuffing her phone into her pocket, “rip the jacket off.”

Regina scowled at Granny but didn’t protest. Better that it be ripped off than trying to work her tortured arm free of it.

Ruby stood over Regina, grasping her jacket lightly and inspecting the stitching for a moment. She hummed in the back of her throat and –with a few short rips- shredded the jacket from Regina’s shoulder and arm. She did the same with the shirt so Regina sat in her tank top.

“Glad I decided on layers this morning.” Regina murmured and clenched her jaw when Ruby slunk out of the way and Granny moved to palpating her dislocated shoulder.

It looked ugly. The ball of the joint had been completely wrenched free of its socket and stuck up pallid and raw under her skin. Her muscles and tendons were stretched to striated breaking point and the swelling was getting bad. The injury was angry and red, boiling to touch, hot and tight. She was going to have to reduce the inflammation before she could do anything. She couldn’t _move_ it never mind reset it in this state.

“I’m going to have to bleed it.” Granny told her.

Regina did nothing but blink slowly.

“Here.” Ruby returned with the first aid kit and cracked it open.

This was not a regular over the counter first aid box, this was a tool box brimming with all manner of bandages, drugs, sterilised needles, swabs, rubbing alcohol and...scalpels.

Granny moved with a calm efficiency borne of the battlefield. She had been a medic in the wars and –though both she and Regina feigned ignorance of the fact- an intelligence officer as ruthless as the Evil Queen she had been informing against.

She snapped on a set of latex gloves, swabbed alcohol over the area and readied a vial of something. She shucked a scalpel from its packaging and nodded to Ruby.

“Hold her.”

Ruby didn’t even hide how wary she was about doing so. She knew that pain made people lash out and, when Regina lashed out, things tended to get broken.

Like bodies.

“I can contain myself.” Regina looked between them but obediently sat whilst Ruby leaned down behind her, locking her free arm in an iron grip that was impossible to break from this angle and her other arm across Regina’s chest, leaving her shoulder free for Granny to work on.

“Brace yourself.” Granny gave her a moment.

“Do it.” Regina’s gaze fixed on the middle distance and Granny didn’t hesitate.

 She trusted Ruby to be able to misdirect Regina should the queen set herself on fire in pain. Granny could practically _feel_ everyone suck in a breath and she sliced deep into the stretched flesh of Regina’s shoulder with the scalpel. She was sure to avoid any blood vessels and simply pierce the bubble of inflamed fluids.

Blood and watery plasma blurted rudely from the small wound as soon as Granny unplugged the scalpel from it. She clapped a bandage in place and it rapidly turned red. She popped the top of the vial, pressed hard on the wound, feeling the joint grind under the pressure, and then whipped the bandage away, pouring the styptic powder on it. The small cut seemed to boil for a moment whilst the cauterising agent took effect but then the bleeding stopped almost instantly.

Regina never made a sound.

Didn’t flinch, didn’t gasp, didn’t cry. Nothing.

“Tighter.” Granny spoke to Ruby and her granddaughter nodded, wrapping both arms even tighter about Regina. She braced herself against what the woman might do.

This was creepy. She was like a statue. Her heart rate was steady, her breathing even, she wasn’t even sweating. She just sat there. Even when Granny picked up her arm, even when the cartilage crackled and the bone ground, even when her skin paled alarmingly, she did nothing.

Granny stopped bracing herself for Regina’s reaction and set her mind to the task at hand. She was able to get a better feel for what was going on with the joint now and she nodded to herself. Nothing appeared to be ripped. Stretched, sprained and painful as all hell, yes, but nothing torn.

Should be an easy enough fix.

“You got her?” Granny carefully bent Regina’s arm at the elbow, she’d have to crank her arm like a handle to get it to pop back into place.

“ _I_ have me.” Regina answered before Ruby could and Granny just grunted.

With no further warning, she pushed Regina’s wrist towards her body at the same time as she twisted her elbow away. Bone ground, something twanged and the joint _thunked_ back into place.

Regina blinked languidly and otherwise gave no reaction.

Ruby stared at her as if waiting for the timer to hit zero and –when nothing happened- slowly let go of Regina.

“Thank you.” Regina let out a slow breath and a shiver and magic raced and sparked over her skin.

 It crackled and fizzled, forcing Ruby to hop back a step in alarm. Regina sighed in evident relief and closed her eyes, inhaling a steadying breath when her head swam. Her magical immune system quickly overrode her physical one, the swelling lessened even further, the cut Granny had dug into her shoulder scabbing over in seconds, her colour improved and her breathing became regular once more.

She let loose a slow and measured sigh and opened her eyes just in time to see Emmet stride into the diner with enough force to snap the hinges of the door.

His eyes met hers, he took her in at a glance, and lurid gold sparks of furious energy spat from his eyes.

He looked _pissed._        

“What happened?”

Emmet’s voice rolled through the diner, making it clear he’d accept answers from anywhere and, when none were forthcoming, he prowled in after his words.

“Well?”

“She was hit by a truck.” Ruby supplied when Granny busied herself with fashioning a sling from Regina’s ruined shirt.

Granny tortured the queen’s arm into it and pretended not to notice the cold sweat breaking out over her skin.

The pain had to be unimaginable and she _still_ hadn’t made a sound.   

“Whose truck?” Emmet strode closer to Regina and his pace slowed when he saw how rough she looked. He stared for a long moment and then snapped his gaze to Ruby again. “Well? Who is it? Where are they?”

“Regina didn’t see.” Ruby answered again when no one else wanted to.

Granny was making doubly sure that Regina’s arm and shoulder were immobilised and Regina just sat there, one leg folded over the other, her good hand resting on her knee and her eyes closed.

“None of us did either. We didn’t know anything had happened until she turned up to ask Granny to reset her shoulder.” Ruby waved helplessly and bit her lip.

She did not like how Emmet looked. At all.

He seemed suddenly huge. Magic crackled from him, rage a low and malevolent thrum in his scent. His eyes sparked and his teeth clipped with every word. Every move he made seemed to be an aborted assault on the rest of the world. He was so _mad._

Over Regina.

“Regina,” Emmet seemed to stuff the feelings down beneath some control and sank down onto his heels in front of her, “Regina, look at me.”

Regina’s eyes remained closed and worry spiked through Emmet. He reached out and took her hand in his.

“Regina.”

Her eyes snapped open and she inhaled deeply.

“What?” Her voice was hoarse. Like she’d been screaming.

Or like she’d been holding herself back from doing so.

“Who hit you?”

“I didn’t…”

“Lie.” Emmet cut her off before she could even complete the sentence.

Regina sucked in a deep breath and tried again.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll kill them.” She spoke with such calm surety that Emmet found it difficult to refute her. He did it anyway.

“I’m not going to kill anybody.” Emmet forced something of a smile and he wouldn’t have bothered if he’d known how terrifying it made him look.

“There’s oil on her jacket.” Granny held out the ripped sleeve and Regina shot her a look. “Ruby could find the truck.”

“Bad plan.” Ruby muttered though seemingly to herself.

“No need.” Emmet straightened to his full height and took the sleeve from Granny.

He studied the oil on it, his thumb rubbing over the back of Regina’s hand that he still hadn’t let go of. Her eyes were closed again, reinforcing the healing her body was undergoing with conscious instruction probably.

That and trying not to scream the place down because it hurt so much.

Emmet stooped a little to set her hand back on her knee, glanced at Granny with a nod of gratitude and then turned to leave the diner.

“Uh…maybe I should do something?” Ruby watched the door swing closed drunkenly behind him and turned to Granny. “He looks kind of mad.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” Regina spoke on a shiver. “He is too angry to muster complex magics right now and he’s never learned a tracking spell.”

“Has he seen you do it?”

Regina’s eyes snapped open and she whipped her head up to look at Granny. She blinked, frantically thinking and then shook her head.

“No. Never a tracking spell but…oh, hell.” Regina’s foot clapped to the ground when her folded leg seemed to fall off the other.

She tried to stand and reached for someone to help her up when she couldn’t quite manage it by herself. Granny took her hand and Regina hauled herself to her feet.

“Not a tracking spell, but a summoning. He’s going to bring the whole truck to him.” Regina’s head was swimming, her magic was all over the place but she knew she’d be the only one that might have a chance of disarming his spell before he could implement it.

“Is that…bad?”

“Hmm, let me think, a thousand pounds of solid steel travelling at forty miles an hour summoned by an amateur sorcerer who –knowing him- is going to be standing right in the path of it with a living being in the driver’s seat? Nope. Should be fine.” Regina weaved for an alarming moment and then crashed back down into her seat. She waved at the door. “Stop him.”

“What?” Ruby frowned at her. “How?!”

“Distract him. Drag him back here. Tell him you can find the truck. Whatever. Just don’t let him cast the spell!”

Ruby ran for the door without further instruction, she flew out of the diner and hit the street just in time to see that she was too late.

Emmet was standing in the middle of the road, his face frozen in an emotionless mask that emanated a cold fury that was –quite frankly- terrifying. He held Regina’s torn sleeve in one hand and, with a bark of effort, threw up his other hand with a wheel of magic trailing in its wake.

The magic spiralled outwards, swirling into a spiral ten feet across and the missing truck came speeding out of it at some sixty miles an hour.

Emmet punched it.

No thought, no intelligence, no sense, behind the move just a roaring swing of fury that smashed his fist down into the metal hood of the truck with enough force to crush it like an empty soda can.

The truck’s nose dipped, the axle snapping and the fender ploughing into the road. The back end left the street and the hood crumpled like a box of eggs that had been trodden on. There was a squealing sound as the engine was pierced by an irate sorcerer’s fist and punched clean out the bottom of the vehicle. Shrapnel and torn metal flew everywhere, smoke belched from beneath the shattered hood, the airbag went off in the face of the driver and Emmet was rounding the truck even before it finished bouncing back down onto all four wheels.

“Leroy,” Emmet’s fingers punched into the shell of the driver’s side door and he hauled it clean off with a single jerk of his arm, “I might have known.”

The door was sent skittering over the road like a stone skipping over water. Emmet dropped the oil soaked sleeve and reached into the truck with both hands. He gripped the driver’s seat with a good deal of irate magical strength and hauled both it and the dwarven driver clean out of the truck. Emmet dropped the seat onto the road, ripped off the seatbelt –the one thing that had saved Grumpy’s life- and spanned the top of Grumpy’s skull with one hand.

Like that, he dragged him back into the diner.

“Emmet, uh, I think you should stop.” Ruby fell into step with him but didn’t try to take his new chew toy away from him. “I think you’re hurting him.”

“That’s the idea, Rubes.” Emmet’s voice was tight and he completely ignored Leroy’s yells of pain and the scrambling that he was inflicting on Emmet’s wrist with his mad desire to be free.

Emmet kicked the tortured door to the diner open, strode inside with Leroy and Ruby in tow and hurled Leroy into one of the bar stools so hard that he nearly broke something important against the edge of the bar.

“Right! Kids.” Emmet spoke to the diner at large. “I hope one of you has a cell phone for a video because you _don’t_ want me repeating myself.”

“Emmet…” Regina tried again to stand but Granny settled her hand on her good shoulder and effortlessly confined her to her seat.

“You want feudal justice? You want an eye for an eye? Fine. Let’s do that.” Emmet wrapped his huge hand around Leroy’s neck before the dwarf could try to slink away and pinned him to the bar. “Well known fact; Regina was the Evil Queen. _Extremely_ vocal fact; Leroy’s a little pissy that she was never hanged, drawn and quartered. So, in his infinite wisdom, he decided to do something about it.”

Grumpy choked something, a gargled sound that cut off sharply when Emmet’s hand tightened around his throat.

“Emmet.” Regina tried again, yanking at Granny’s sleeve and trying to get the woman to help her up.

“He tried to run Regina down with a truck. Dislocated her shoulder –amongst other injuries- so here’s how this works; anything you dish out to one another, _I_ will revisit on you myself. Twice.” Emmet turned to Leroy and took his arm in an iron grip. “I’m going to dislocate both of your arms.”

Grumpy’s eyes bugged wide and he squeaked something alarmed sounding.

“Emmet!” Regina hurled herself to her feet and staggered badly, only Ruby prevented her from falling flat on her face. “Emmet, stop this!”

“It’s going to hurt considerably,” Emmet continued to Grumpy and didn’t appear to hear Regina, “I don’t know my own strength after all. I may well rip them clean off. Ready?”

Grumpy shook his head wildly, trying to speak around the steel bands of Emmet’s fingers still manacled around his throat. Looking into the Sheriff’s eyes, Grumpy fully believed that he was about to be dismembered.

“Emmet!” Regina lunged out of Ruby’s hold and grabbed Emmet’s jacket with her good hand. She staggered badly, her legs still feeling like they belonged to someone else and she tilted dangerously.

Emmet spun on his heel with a blurring speed and wrapped both arms around her, stopping her from falling.

“Emmet, you idiot, _listen_ to him. He wasn’t the driver.”

“That was the truck, I _know_ I summoned the right one.” Emmet glared down at her. This was no time for her bizarre self-flagellation. Especially when she seemed to be outsourcing the flagellation to any takers that volunteered.

“Tell him you didn’t do it.” Regina let herself be held up by Emmet, it was taking all of her strength to hold up her end of the conversation never mind her bodyweight. “Tell him!”

“Wasn’t me.” Grumpy shook his head wildly, every word rasping from him. “Didn’t hit her with my truck or nothin’ else.”

“Use your super power.” Regina tried to sneer it at him but she was a little too busy resting her forehead against his chest and closing her eyes. The floor seemed to be tilting. Granny should really look into that. “Is he lying?”

Emmet stared at Leroy for a long time, his jaw clenched into a granite line and then he grunted in the back of his throat.

“That was the truth.” He allowed after a stony moment.

“See?”

“So it wasn’t him. There’s still someone out there who hit you with a fucking _truck_.” Emmet seethed and glared at Grumpy. “I told you, I can’t stand that shit. I won’t _stand_ for it, you hear?”

Grumpy nodded quickly.

“Enough, Emmet. This isn’t you.” Regina wrapped her hand in the leather of his jacket when the floor appeared to be at a forty five degree angle to just about everything else.

“Maybe it should be.” Emmet gritted, his glare still practically burning holes into Grumpy.

“Nope, crazy evility is my thing.” Regina gulped in a deep breath and raised her head cautiously.

“They have twenty four hours to turn themselves in and I might – _might­_ \- go easy on them.” Emmet thumped a finger into Leroy’s sternum to underscore his point. “Twenty four hours or I go munchkin hunting.”

“Dwarves.” Leroy croaked.

“Like I give a fuck.” Emmet snapped.

“Emmet,” Regina managed a half-hearted glare at the dwarf who was doing nothing to help his case, “take me away from here.”

 She had to distract him. She had to get him out of here before he gave in to the temptation singing in his blood to rip and rend and tear. She knew it well. It was difficult to control, especially when freshly awakened in a new sorcerer.

“I need you to heal me.” She tried again when he seemed reluctant to move.

“What?” He whipped his head around to look at her. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you doing it yourself?”

“I’m a little busy trying to stay conscious. When I pass out, I won’t be able to control what goes on. You need to heal me before I fall into a healing coma.”

“Coma?!” Emmet looked alarmed, turning fully to her and holding her up with his hands on the cinch of her waist.

“We have time, but you need to do something now.” Regina wavered and her eyelids fluttered. She didn’t even know if she was exaggerating for him anymore.

 “Granny?” Emmet looked over at the old wolf and she nodded sharply.

“Ye can use the guesthouse.”

That was all the encouragement Emmet needed. He stooped and scooped Regina effortlessly up into his arms. She made a sound of protest that he summarily ignored and strode out the back of the diner towards the guesthouse.

Everyone watched them go with varying degrees of shock and awe and the only person that didn’t seem taken aback by the entire debacle was Granny herself. She lifted her first aid kit and toted it over to the stool beside Grumpy. Cracking it open again, she studied his injuries and set about patching him up as best she could.

He was battered and bruised, but nothing life threatening. Mostly, he’d just had ten years shaved off his life through abject terror.

Understandable really, considering he’d just been on the business end of a sorcerer and –incredibly- been saved by the Evil Queen.

Because there was little doubt in Granny’s mind that Emmet truly would have ripped off Leroy’s arms. There had not been a word of a lie from that boy…except for when he spoke of Regina.

When he spoke of Regina and said they weren’t friends or anything of the kind.

Then – _then_ \- he lied.

 

**_Some Time Later…_ **

 

Regina awoke slowly, her eyelids fluttering and a groan deep in her throat. She blinked rapidly and hissed out a slow breath when she became aware of a throbbing in her shoulder.

She frowned when she realised it wasn’t painful.

What had she missed?

Regina lifted her head and blearily looked about herself.

She was in one of the rooms in the guesthouse, on one of the beds to be precise, and Emmet was wrapped around her like he was attempting to be a living blanket.

One arm was curled around her so she lay on it, that hand splayed over the centre of her chest, little tingles and sparks of magic thrumming from his fingertips and palm into her skin. His other arm was settled over hers in its sling, that hand spanning her shoulder entirely, a steady throb of magic beating from him into her. His head was bowed so that it rested on her shoulder, his lips grazing her skin with every breath she took.

Regina sat up carefully and turned to look at him.

Emmet let loose a slow sigh when she shifted and rolled a bit further onto his back. His hands fell away from her and still they pulsed with magic.

“Idiot.” Regina scolded quietly when she realised what he had done.

She had told him that she had needed healing and –at some point- had lost consciousness before she could tell him when to _stop._

So he had done the first fool thing that had come into his head. He’d wrapped himself around her, insulated her heart and directed pure healing energy into her through the focal point of her shoulder. He had kept it up until the effort had driven him into sleep and the spell had continued to drain him.

“You’re a danger to yourself and others.” Regina told him firmly, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.

She laid her hand over his forehead and concentrated a moment. Her eyes closed and she slipped beneath his wards. She knew how, she’d helped him build them after all, but she was careful not to invade any further than she had to.

Her surface thoughts glanced against his, he was dreaming of…Regina smirked. He was dreaming of her.

She skated away from that before she gave in to the temptation to meddle, and rooted out the programming of the spell he had lain into each hand. It was a moment’s work to snip the strings of power feeding into them and she opened her eyes, her mind slipping from his, carefully leaving it exactly as she had found it. She saw the flow simmer into nothing under the skin of his hands.

“He going to be alright?”

Regina twitched violently in surprise, setting fire to her hand and leaning over Emmet protectively before she could even summon a conscious thought.

She seethed out a breath through her teeth when she saw Granny sitting on a rocking chair in the corner of the room.

“I’m going to bell you.” Regina threatened and Granny smirked a little, rocking quietly to herself. Regina snuffed the fire from her hand, remained silent for long moments and then answered the crone’s query. “He’ll be fine. He just doesn’t have the magical stamina for a prolonged healing spell.”

Regina tried to recover her dignity and straightened up from the way she had lunged over Emmet to shield him.

Granny had the grace not to mention it so neither would Regina.

She busied herself with doing a full system’s check and her brows rose when she realised that she felt… _fantastic._

Reaching up, she gently prodded at her shoulder and found it completely free of swelling and pain. A careful exploration of her face resulted in no tenderness or evidence of inflammation, cuts or bruises. She blinked rapidly.

“Ye’ve never looked healthier.” Granny didn’t look up from her sewing.

Regina recognised her blazer but decided not to tell Granny that it was completely ruined. She supposed the old bag needed something to do whilst she kept watch over Regina and Emmet to make sure no dwarves took it into their heads to start something.

Yes, Regina _had_ noticed the shotgun propped in the shadow of Granny’s chair.

“Thank you. I think.” Regina carefully swung her legs over the side of the bed and froze when Emmet shifted with a groan and wrapped his arm about her waist.

Regina considered her options and decided ignoring that too was her best bet. She primly ignored Granny’s snort of amusement too.

Setting about her sling, Regina worked the knotted material free and carefully flexed her arm.

It didn’t hurt. Not at all.

“It would seem the boy is good for ye.” Granny finished stitching a popped seam and snipped the thread away.

“Hardly.” Regina glanced up from her ponderings of extricating herself from Emmet’s hold. She couldn’t quite seem to get him to let go of her.

“Tisn’t a bad thing.” Granny noted mildly, moving onto another seam. “You’re good for him too.”

“You’re going senile.” Regina gave up on trying to escape Emmet’s hold for the moment and glared at Granny instead. “I’m not good for _anyone._ ”

“Including Henry?” Granny asked innocently.

“Henry’s different.”

“A trait he may well have inherited from Emmet, no?”

“No.” Regina spoke flatly and Granny smirked.

“Methinks you protest too much.”

“Whatever.” Regina realised something suddenly and looked wildly about herself.

“Yer purse is with Ruby. She’s looking after the cats.”

Regina went still, her jaw rocking to the side when she considered how to play with this new information.

“Got hit by the truck scooping them out the way, didn’t ye?”

Regina said nothing. Her dignity had been bruised enough as it was without adding stupidity to the mix.

“We spoke with Sleepy, yer ‘assailant’. Says he woke up just in time to see them on the road, queen cat and her kittens. The fool froze rather than brake or swerve and –bang- hit you when you huckled them to safety and nearly got made to roadkill yourself.”

Regina looked away from Granny and kept her silence. She attempted stoic aloofness but she didn’t know if it was successful in hiding that she had no idea what to say.

So she had leapt in front of a truck in order to save a cat and her kittens, she supposed now she could change her title to Queen of Nothing But Stupidity.

“Which begs the question; why not use magic?”

Regina stared at the wallpaper for a long moment, measuring the ruddy orange of the setting sun filtering in through the window. The room grew darker by the second but that didn’t appear to bother Granny in the slightest. Regina wondered idly if she had vestigial superior night vision along with her heightened sense of hearing and smell.

“Well?”

Regina glared at her.

“Going to have to do better than scowl to scare me off, girl.”

Regina rolled her eyes and relented after a long moment.

“I had time to construct two shields but one would have to be better than the other. One of us could be protected fully from the impact with the truck but the other…wouldn’t.” Regina hunched her shoulder in a shrug, showing no trace of her injury. “So there was magic involved. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“You gave the better shield to the cats? To dumb animals?”

Regina scowled but said nothing.

“Interesting.” Granny decided after a moment.

“Is it?” Regina’s tone made it clear that Granny’s interest should be a temporary thing.

“Mm-hmm.” Granny nodded and rocked her chair steadily. “You’d kill a man without blinking but would throw yourself in front of a truck to save some kittens.”

Regina was quiet for a long moment and looked down at her skirt, smoothing the rumpled material.

“They didn’t deserve to be mashed into the road. I could do something about it so I did.” Regina shook her hair back and met Granny in the eye. “Is that not what good people do?”

“Hmm, maybe, but not all of them would put their own life at risk for _cats._ ”

“Is this because you’re a dog person?” Regina arched a brow.

“No-o.” Granny tilted her head. “It’s because I’m trying to understand what kind of person you are.”

“You know what kind of person I am.” Regina rolled her eyes and went back to trying to shift Emmet’s arm from across her lap. No dice. It would seem that his bones had recently been replaced with plutonium.

“No. I don’t think I do.”

“Why the sudden curiosity, hmm?” Regina was growing tired of this. “What does it matter to you who I really am?”

“So you admit that there is a real you to know?”

Regina’s jaw clenched but it would seem that Granny didn’t need her participation in the conversation to continue it.

“In answer to ye’re question; it didn’t matter until now.” Granny finished the current seam she was stitching and searched out another rip to seal. “It didn’t matter because you love Henry. You’d never deliberately do anything to hurt him and –so long as that was the case- we had less to fear from you.”

“And now?” Regina gave up on Emmet’s arm and tilted her head.

“Now it’s different. Now I don’t know what’s keeping you from harming _that_ boy.” Granny nodded to Emmet. “Henry is safe from you. Always will be. You’re less mad now, more conscious that he can be taken away from you, makes you careful. He’s your first priority again, not keeping him away from Emmet.”

Regina’s jaw rocked to the side. She reminded herself that she didn’t care about the old woman’s opinion.

“My motives are my own.”

“That’s what concerns me. Nobody _really_ minds that Henry spends time with you because we know you won’t hurt him but Emmet…he’s got no such protections as your affection…does he?”

Regina froze when she realised what Granny was really asking. She noticed only then that she was running her fingers over the cuts lacing raggedly over Emmet’s knuckles. Turns out that you couldn’t just punch a truck to a halt without any repercussions to yourself.

“Whatever it is you want to say…I suggest you just come out and say it.” Regina gritted. “Because I definitely don’t hold any affection for _you_.”

Granny smirked, lifting her attention from her stitching at last.

“I wouldn’t expect any less.” Granny sobered. “But I can be a help to you in this. Your life will be easier if everybody isn’t just holding their breath waiting for you to prove them all right. That no one can be close to you without you betraying them.”

“Are you…? You’re _vetting_ me!” Regina finally caught on. “For WHAT?!”

“No need to raise your voice at me.” Granny spoke mildly and turned back to her stitching.

“Considering the alternative is setting fire to you, I’d think you’d be grateful.” Regina growled. “I neither want nor need your approval in _any_ aspect of my life. Nor do I require you to make my life ‘easier’. I learned a long time ago that ‘easy’ would never be a word applied to describing my day-to-day existence.”

“Maybe it could be.”

“Maybe you could grow wings out of your ass and fly to France but I’m not holding my brea- - _what_ are you smirking at?!”

“You cussed.” Granny increased the rocking of her chair. “I’ve never heard you do that before.”

“You don’t know me very well.” Regina clipped.

“True…but that’s something that could change.”

“Urgh.” Regina more frantically tried to get out from under Emmet’s arm. She really didn’t need this conversation. “We don’t need to be friends for me to tell you that –at the moment- I have no real…no _serious_ desire to hurt Emmet.” Regina’s jaw clenched and she shrugged a shoulder. “Well, that tends to be true mostly when he’s not talking.”

“True.” Granny snorted and smirked. “You don’t need to be a friend to tell me that but it would help me if I trusted you enough to believe that.”

“Well, that will never happen so…” Regina managed –finally- to heft Emmet’s arm out of the way and gave a low growl of frustration when he shifted and simply dropped his other arm over her lap.

She decided that it was too risky to simply teleport out from under him. She knew she was still tired and shaky from the healing, her math might not be up to escaping without shearing his arm off. So she inhaled a deep breath for patience and resigned herself to either waiting for Emmet to wake up or to ask Granny for help.

Regina would wait fifty years for Emmet to wake up if she had to.

“The world is full of possibilities.”

“I’m not going to jump through hoops for you or anyone else.” Regina ground out from behind clenched teeth. “Henry loves me. He’s all I need.”

“Would it be so bad to have more?”

“It would be more complicated and I find my predilection for murder is greatly lessened so long as I simplify.” Regina smiled falsely and scrunched up her nose.

“I don’t think you’re her anymore.”

“Willing to stake your life on that?”

“Emmet’s already staked his on it.”

Regina’s jaw clenched.

“That’s his business then. He knows who I am. He knows what he apparently risks whenever he ventures close enough for me to pounce. Just sheer dumb luck that I haven’t done so yet, hmm?”

“Is it? Would it be so terrible for you to care about him? Even just a little bit?”

 Regina’s jaw clenched and she developed a sudden interest in the wallpaper again. Granny waited her out with the patience of a continent.

“My feelings don’t matter. Nobody is _friends_ with the Evil Queen. They are allied to her or under her thrall. Neither of those is considered a good thing.”

“Her.”

“What?”

“You referred to the Evil Queen as another person. You see her different to you now too.”

Regina rolled her eyes but Granny wouldn’t let it shrug her off.

“Emmet’s made it quite clear that public opinion about you means diddly to him. Maybe he deserves the same courtesy from you?”

“Because the people of this little town put _so_ much stock in my opinion.”

“They do, actually.” Granny turned her attention back to her stitching for a moment. “Feared, yes. Disliked, intensely. Respected…definitely.”

“I think that’s just feared twice over.”

“You speak and people listen. That’s a _rare_ skill.”

“Well, being able to summon a golem to rip people apart tends to snare their attention with surprising ease.” Regina made to dust her skirt off and growled when she found Emmet’s arm in the way.

“Will you hurt him?”

Regina’s head snapped up at the sudden question devoid of wheedling or artifice. She looked over at Granny and blinked languidly, considering her response.

“At this point…I don’t think I am able to.”

“Is that because of him or you?”

Regina looked sharply away from her and Granny made a low sound in the back of her throat.

“If I harm Emmet, the people of this town will turn on me – _again_ \- and Henry will despise me.” Regina shrugged a shoulder as if that might not cut her to her soul. “Also again. So, you see, there is no advantage to be had in turning him into mincemeat.”

“There’s more than one way to hurt him.”

“Like?” Regina’s tone was dangerous, making it clear that Granny probably shouldn’t answer if she valued her life.

Granny was no coward.

“Like his heart.”

“Oh, _please,_ there is absolutely NOTHING of that nature…”

“Liar.” Granny spoke quietly but Regina clipped her teeth together as if she had bellowed. “He cares for you and you know it. You could do anything with that kind of power over him and you know that too. So, the question becomes; why haven’t you?”

“I told you. There’s nothing to gain from turning Emmet against me. He’ll do what he always threatens to do when he doesn’t get his way, he’ll take Henry from me.”

“You really think it would be that easy?” Granny examined her last few stitches and tutted in disapproval when she saw they were squint.

“Past experience has taught me that it is almost ridiculously easy to turn my son against me.” Regina spoke lightly and looked away from Granny again.

Granny’s head snapped up at that and she frowned.

Did…did Regina truly think that? That her son would abandon her with nothing more than a word from Emmet? Really?

“Has the boy actually said that?”

“Which boy?”

“Emmet. Has he actually threatened to take Henry from you?”

“He doesn’t need to.” Regina snorted. “I know that’s what he’ll do the _moment_ I step a toe out of line. Henry is my only weakness and Emmet would be a fool not to put pressure on it to keep me in line. The balance has shifted again. He’s learning magic. Soon, I will no longer have that advantage over him.”

“But he’s never actually threatened you?”

“I told you, he doesn’t need to. Some things go unsaid so people can function alongside one another. He knows that if he pushes first I will push back, it is the way I am.”

“Did it ever occur to you that, maybe, it’s gone unsaid because he never has any intention of saying it?”

“He’ll do it.” Regina looked away from Granny again despite wanting to hold her gaze in defiance of this entire conversation. “Sooner or later, he’ll turn. When he doesn’t need me anymore, when he’s used me enough, he’ll dispose of me.”

“You really think that?”

“You said not five minutes ago that, when I speak people listen, did you preclude yourself from that statement?”

“Watch it.” Granny warned her.

“Every day.” Regina clipped at her. “People use me. It’s what they do. I do not have friends, I have allies. People are not kind to me for no reason, they curry favour. They do not willingly spend time in my presence, they buy what they need and then they’re done and I prefer it that way.”

“Bullshit.”

“Your crass vocabulary doesn’t change the truth.”

“Neither do your flowery words make the nonsense you’re spouting gospel.” Granny thumped Regina’s blazer down onto her lap and scowled. “Emmet is a good man.”

“And good men are the worst for it.” Regina managed a brittle smile and Granny saw the exact moment she hit the wall.

Looking down, Regina hauled Emmet’s arm off her lap and thrust it aside, not caring if she woke him. She rose to her feet and straightened her clothes. She looked at Granny and her eyes were blank of any emotion. She’d retreated completely back into that fortress she tried to keep her heart in.

“Thank you for your help.”

Then she was gone.

Emmet sat up on the bed before the smoke had even cleared from Regina’s magical disappearance. He raised his knees and looped his arms around them, a strange look on his face.

“How much did ye hear?” Granny asked gently. She’d been aware that he was awake but she wasn’t sure exactly when he’d become aware of their conversation.

“Not enough.” He shrugged a shoulder and looked a little haunted. “Too much.”

“She _does_ care for you.”

“Which helps me in exactly no way at all. Not when she thinks she’s little better than a whore in my eyes. That I’m just _using_ her and then I’m gonna just…!” Emmet cut himself off sharply. “I’d never take Henry from her. Not again. It damn near broke her last time and Henry needs her as much as she needs him. Why does she think I’d just…hurt her like that?”

“Maybe because your family has done nothing but?” Granny looked at the ceiling as if she hadn’t thought along similar lines for quite some time. For as long as she’d begun to see the human side of Regina. As soon as she’d realised there _was_ a human side. “Even Henry’s broken her heart.”

“I am _not_ my grandfather OR my parents and Henry’s just a kid.”

“So was Snow and look how much damage a ten year old can wreak with careless choices.”

“None of my choices regarding Regina have ever been made carelessly.” Emmet looked Granny right in the eye as he spoke.

“Including threatening to rip Leroy’s arm’s off?”

“Especially that.” Emmet bared his teeth a little as he spoke and then reined himself in. “How do I get her to trust me?”

“How did she get you to trust her?”

Emmet was silent for a long moment as he actually thought that over. He wasn’t sure exactly when he realised she had his back when it came to…

“She shifted into a guy to prove to Henry that it was still me. On the inside, that the mom he loved was still in here.” Emmet pressed his hand to his chest. “I think that was it. It started with the diamond.”

 Emmet was quite a long moment. Thinking about the way that could have gone. Tremendously glad that he had been there to help. That he had managed to do some of that Saving business that everyone was always going on about.

“She was prepared, you know. She was going to die in that cave to give us all a chance to get out. Not just Henry. Everybody. She said to me that she wanted to die as her. Not as the Evil Queen. I got it then. What she wanted. Not to take Henry back but to be better and not just for him but for her. Yeah, it started with the diamond and I _knew_ when she took the time to convince Henry that I was really still me.”

“So, maybe she’s got to know that you’re never going to take Henry from her.”

“If she doesn’t trust me, no amount of me saying it will ever make her believe it.”

“Then let actions speak louder than words.”

Emmet was quiet a moment as he mulled that over and then he nodded sharply.

“Thanks, Granny.” He hurled himself from the bed and all but ran out the door.

Granny watched him go for a long moment and then turned back to her stitching. She rocked in her chair and thought over what she had just done. Her mouth twisted and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“Ye’d better know what ye’re doin’, Gytha Lucas.” She huffed out a slow breath and spoke to herself.

“For everybody’s sakes.”


End file.
